In defense of being mulish

Stephen Bayley, author the Dictionary of Idiocy, opines in the Telegraph that only the opinionated, the original thinkers, the contrarians are worth listening to. The rest are just followers and fuddy-duddys, treading well-worn and boring paths of knowledge and unoriginal opinion. May I throw a wrench in the works? Three things come to mind.

We must be careful not to confuse eccentricity with originality. One has its basis in spite and difference for difference sake, the other in making a contribution to thought. Perhaps my favorite political thinker (right up there with Hume, Burke, and assorted others), the perspicacious James Fitzjames Stephen, warned that if John Stuart Mill's preference for "mere variety" in thought and action were followed, the world would be a silly ugly place. If this advice were followed, we should have as many little oddities in manner and behavior as we have people who wish to pass for men of genius. Eccentricity is far more often a mark of weakness than a mark of strength. Weakness wishes, as a rule, to attract attention by trifling distinctions, and strength wishes to avoid it. Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people. That seems an important distinction, separately out mere difference from solid, original thought. And can you have an original thought that bulwarks established things? Can you have a conservative or reactionary genius?

Further, should society blandly smile and accept original opinions? One could certainly argue that the social stigma attached to uttering new ideas is burdensome and uncomfortable, but could we also say it is absolutely necessary? We judge the truthfulness and goodness of new ideas by putting them through hell, a sort of intellectual Darwinism. Stephen continues: Till a man has carefully formed his opinions on these subjects, thought them out, assured himself of their value, and decided to take the risk of proclaiming them, the strong probability is that they are not much worth having. Speculation on government, morals, and religion is a matter of vital importance, and not mere food for curiosity. Curiosity, no doubt, is generally the motive which leads a man to study them; but, till he has formed opinions on them for which he is prepared to fight, there is no hardship in his being compelled by social intolerance to keep them to himself and to those who sympathise with him. Thus we have the odd dance of opposites. On one hand, we have original ideas born of curiosity and the quest for knowledge and wisdom; on the other, we have the social pressure and intellectual criticism persecuting the original thought to test its meddle. In truth, unless we are intolerant of the original idea, how do we know its worth?

On this question, Jacques Barzun even goes so far as to bemoan the death of the philistine in modern life. Surely it took courage of the best mulish sort to make the same protest, generation after generation, on seeing each new school of 19C art and literature produced and derided, then accepted, and at last exhalted and lodged at public expense in museums, libraries, and concert halls. But they slowly died away by the 1920s, transformed into a new breed of trimmers and cowards. Intolerance is no longer tolerated. Shame on you for being shameful. Yet, without a dab of the philisitine in us, how will we separate the bad from the good?

Finally, we should also be on guard against mere "open-mindedness," one of my least favorite phrases. I detest it when, in the heat of discussion and debate, someone retorts "well, try to be open-minded." To be open-minded is very often to be empty-headed. It is better to be narrow-minded than to have no mind, said Evelyn Waugh, to hold limited and rigid principles than none at all. That is the danger which faces so many people today -- to have no considered opinions on any subject, to put up with what is wasteful and harmful with the excuse that there is 'good in everything' -- which in most cases means an inability to distinguish between good and bad. You must begin with some frame of reference, with some structure based on the best that has been thought and written previous to your time. This allows you to judge original ideas and see their value or worthlessness.

Bayley notes, Opinions flourish only in periods or cultures without a dominant religion. A medieval monk in his Cluniac abbey or a contemporary mullah in his mosque and, indeed, a fine Victorian gentleman, had little use for original opinions. The collective opinions of religion are inflexible dogma, not interesting expressions of private thought. The best opinions are contrarian, not conformist, although that is in itself a matter of opinion. It is this irreverent quality that attracted Flaubert, the perpetual adolescent. And it was for the same reason that the Duke of Wellington disapproved of his soldiers cheering because this was very nearly an expression of a personal opinion and, by suggestion, insubordination or even mutiny. Is this true? Interesting expressions of private thought have more value than collective opinions based upon thousands of years of experience and habit? I recall one semester, having a particularly unruly and outspoken class (many with very strong opinions indeed), telling them if this was a ship and I was the captain, I'd throw half of you overboard for insubordination and insolence. I'll stick with the Iron Duke.